GlassFire Magazine

Home     Editorial     Fiction     Poetry     Reviews     Submissions     Contact Us

Plus Sized

Jessica Dunagan

Lucille Clifton calls it “luxury size.”

I like her term better than society’s “plus size.” 

Either way, it isn’t just “size;” it isn’t normal.

It isn’t a 5 or a 7 or a 9. 

The only acceptable double digit is 00,

And it isn’t anywhere close. 

It’s large double digits divisible by 2.

Its designers hide in the back of department stores

And try to butter customers up—“Woman’s section.”

Not Misses or Juniors, but a real life-sized woman.

It’s only real in the stores, though. 

American men like their big cars and homes and dogs

But they like their women breakable,

Slender 13 year olds with mere breast buds,

Not real women like the plus sizes.

Jessica Dunagan is a recent college graduate and technical editor in Oklahoma City.  Although she grew up in Texas, she considers Oklahoma a second home now.  She has been published in several online and print literary journals, including miller's pond and True Romance.